Fox hunts big bad science in maze

The place of evidence-based practice, science and scientists in UK public opinion was given a round inspection on the BBC radio debate show, The Moral Maze [1], this week.

The pretext was the argument over doctored climate change data and the sacking of UK government drugs adviser David Nutt for straying off message. [See Keeping truth and power in the family [2].]

But the conversation between, among others, Bad Science [3] specialist Ben Goldacre, the Conservative cabinet minister turned pundit, Michael Portillo, Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics John Milbank and stem cell biologist, Lewis Wolpert, covered much other philosophical ground.

The talk of a resurgence of distrust in the value and objectivity of evidence drove Goldacre to defend the systematic review as the ultimate scientific insurance against the hubris of individual scientists.

He was pursued by the director of the UK Institute of Ideas [4], Claire Fox.

"Can I ask you if you’d like politicians to make laws in accordance with evidence? Would we have better laws?"

"I think they should always be aware of what the evidence is," Goldacre told her. "Obviously, there are lots of other things that drive policy. Somebody may have a moral view that trumps the facts. What’s problematic is if people then try to distort the facts in order to promote their own policy."

"What I want to know is how far anyone should go in taking any notice of evidence,” Fox persisted. “If the evidence showed that you could reduce the number of thefts by cutting people’s hands off - and I think there is quite some substantial evidence from some totalitarian regimes that if you do that crime goes down – surely, you wouldn’t advocate that as a good policy here."

"I wouldn’t deny that there was good evidence that cutting people’s hands off reduced theft," Goldacre replied, "but I would say there are other things that come to bear on whether or not I would implement that policy."

"Fine, so, you’re saying that, in many ways evidence, is really quite marginal to whether one brings in that law. It’s to do with one’s attitude to freedom, morality and so on. So you should know it, but not be influenced by it, other than to know it."

Her skepticism was was amplified by the Christian theologian and critic of the basis of social science, John Milbank [5].

“All science can do in relation to society is report on certain patterns of behavior we have now,” he claimed. “It has to bracket the question of whether those patterns of behavior can themselves be transformed.

“It is a limited exercise. Science can show that there’s a repeated pattern of behavior that you can reproduce. It assumes the ethos that exists at present.

“So if you come to a rather utilitarian conclusion about a certain kind of deterrent, it might be that it works only because we live in a society where people are already thinking like utilitarians.

“This isn’t to question the validity of this kind of social science; it’s to say we have to be careful about what it means. I think that’s to be more not less scientific.

Claire Fox had more to say about the limitations. “I mean, I can’t go into a debate now on recycling or the nanny state and early intervention in children’s lives without some politician saying ‘the neuroscience shows…’ or ‘we are evidence based …’ or ‘you can’t say that because the evidence shows…’ But that’s not enough to close down the debate.

“Science has to be open ended. One of the things that’s happened is that too often scientists end up in the Newsnight studio rather than in the peer-reviewed journals, and that’s precisely because, instead of politics or morality, we take science seriously.

“When you want somebody to speak about climate change or the third world or something, you’ve got some scientist pontificating about what they think about politics – and then what happens is, the science is compromised – it becomes advocacy.

“Political orthodoxies and dogmas are hiding behind what ‘science says…’ The science might tell you the facts on climate change; it doesn’t mean that my local council can go round charging me for not recycling my rubbish.”